Top U.N. official describes 'Horror' in South Sudan

UNITED NATIONS — A top U.N. human rights official visiting South Sudan described horror Friday, with bodies on the streets and reports of mass killings, sexual violence and the recruitment of children into battle.

At the end of a four-day visit to the country, the official, Ivan Simonovic, the assistant secretary general for human rights, said “mass atrocities” had been committed by both sides as fighters loyal to the South Sudanese president, Salva Kiir, battle forces aligned with his ousted rival, former Vice President Riek Machar, for control of strategic towns.

What began as a political contest, Simonovic said, has turned into a full-scale communal conflict, pitting the country's two main ethnic groups, the Dinka and the Nuer, against each other. “People on both sides are absolutely convinced that the other side is to blame, which makes the situation even more dangerous,” he said in a statement. On a visit to the town of Bentiu, which he called a ghost town after several bouts of fighting, he said he saw 15 corpses lying on a road.

He said the United Nations would issue a report chronicling human rights violations in the days since the conflict exploded on Dec. 15, and promised “accountability.”

His statement echoed a report from Human Rights Watch the day before, which documented, among other acts of violence, a massacre of 200 to 300 men in the Gudele neighborhood of Juba, the South Sudanese capital, on Dec. 16. They were taken to a police station and shot. Human Rights Watch has called for an independent international commission of inquiry and urged the United Nations to impose a travel ban and asset freeze on those responsible.

South Sudan is the third country in Africa where Doctors Without Borders, known for resilience in some of the world's most inhospitable crisis zones, has been forced to curtail activities in recent months.